FDP on work and social affairs

The FDP wants to tackle the staff shortage in daycare with paid training, more dual training and higher starting salaries. This is also meant to attract more men to the job.

Daycare centers lack staff. The FDP wants all trainees to get paid. Starting pay should be higher. This should bring more people into the job, including more men.

Training pay is to apply everywhere. Curricula and training programs should be reviewed regularly so they reflect current research. Career paths through part-time university study and continuing education are to be expanded.

The FDP wants to introduce mandatory arbitration procedures for strikes in aviation. It argues that labor disputes by small groups can bring large parts of air traffic to a halt. The right to strike would remain in place in principle.

Sometimes small groups go on strike at the airport. Then many flights are canceled. The FDP wants fixed rules for this. Both sides would first have to negotiate with a mediator. The right to strike would stay.

According to the program, an amicable agreement between employers and unions should be the focus. To that end, an arbitration procedure would become compulsory. The FDP points to the effects that labor disputes by individual small occupational groups have on air traffic as a whole. The right to strike itself would remain untouched in principle.

The FDP wants to promote new forms of housing for older people, such as shared living groups, multigenerational housing and cooperatives, and create regular public funding for them. Seniors should also find it easier to volunteer and take part in politics.

Older people should be able to live independently for a long time. The FDP wants to support new ways of living, such as shared homes. The state should help pay for planning and building. Seniors should also be able to take part more, as volunteers and in politics.

The state is to support shared living groups and care groups with outpatient support through start-up funding that covers all or most planning costs, and provide low-cost loans for construction. Municipalities should receive a fixed sum for advice on project design. Barriers in homes should be removed and technical aids for safety made usable. The age limit for the Voluntary Social Year (FSJ) is to be lifted. The FDP wants to examine anchoring senior citizens' councils in the Hessian Municipal Code and draw up a guideline with minimum criteria for them.

The FDP wants to support companies that join forces in training alliances and rejects a training-place levy, which in its view only burdens small and midsize businesses. For young refugees, the InteA classes should be open up to an entry age of 25.

The FDP wants to strengthen job training in companies and vocational schools. Small companies should be able to train young people together. The FDP rejects a fee for companies without trainees. Young refugees should be allowed into special classes for longer. There they learn German and get a school certificate.

For training alliances, the state should take the initiative mainly as a coordinator. Existing further training programs should stay and grow according to demand. The InteA classes (integration and school completion) are to be opened to entrants up to age 25. The FDP also wants to develop the EIBE and Schub classes further and support production schools so that every young person has a chance at training and a job in the regular labor market.

The FDP wants to loosen the Working Hours Act so that employees can interrupt their workday for family time. Remote work should become normal through collective agreements, and extra vacation days should be freely negotiable with the employer.

The FDP wants more flexible rules for working hours. Parents should be able to pause work during the day for family. Working from home should become normal. Workers should be allowed to negotiate more vacation days with their boss.

The FDP favors pay based on performance rather than presence and supports flexible working-time models. The option of working partly from home should be written into framework collective agreements by unions and employers, for large and small companies alike. All employees should be able to agree freely on vacation days beyond the statutory or collectively agreed entitlement. This is meant to make it easier for parents to look after their children during school holidays.

The FDP wants to give people with disabilities as much independence as possible and relies on individual solutions such as the personal budget, which is to be offered statewide. Accessibility is to be expanded, and deafblind people are to receive a higher allowance for the blind.

People with disabilities should be able to live as independently as possible. They should choose what help they get. The personal budget is a tool for this. The FDP wants more accessibility. Deafblind people should get more money.

With the personal budget, benefits can be drawn as cash or in kind; for people with intellectual disabilities, the cost of a necessary caregiver should not reduce the budget. The FDP supports inclusive approaches in daycare, schools and leisure facilities but wants specially qualified institutions for children with disabilities to remain available where needed. For working life, the platform names vocational support, rehabilitation infrastructure, more special employment companies, better-qualified integration services and keeping the vocational training and retraining centers. In assisted living, those affected and their relatives are to have a say.

The FDP wants the Landeswohlfahrtsverband (LWV, State Welfare Association) to be the sole supra-regional body responsible for integration assistance in Hesse. In the party's view, only the LWV ensures comparable quality and oversight statewide; its special-needs schools are to be kept and developed further.

The State Welfare Association helps people with disabilities in Hesse. The FDP wants it alone to keep this job for the whole state. This should make help equally good everywhere. Its special schools should stay.

The LWV is to keep this role during and after the statewide implementation of the Federal Participation Act. Cooperation with municipalities and their umbrella associations is to be intensified so that those affected have equal opportunities across Hesse and burdens stay fairly shared. The LWV's special-needs schools are to become places of joint learning rather than being closed. Where needed, their buildings are to be adapted to current requirements.

The FDP wants more flexible rules for working-time models and, through the Bundesrat, simpler occupational safety requirements for home-office workplaces. This is meant to cut commuting and ease pressure to move from rural areas to cities.

The FDP wants freer rules for working hours. There should be fewer rules for working from home. Hesse should push for this in the Bundesrat, the chamber of the states. Then fewer people need to commute. And more people can stay in the countryside.

The platform favors project-based work over rigid time tracking. Because occupational safety is federal law, Hesse would launch an initiative in the Bundesrat. The FDP expects less migration out of rural regions, less road traffic and a better balance between work and private life. The plan is explicitly framed as a contribution to environmental and climate protection.

The FDP wants to give state employees a legal right to remote work. New office concepts would go along with this so that the state remains an attractive employer.

People who work for the state of Hesse should be allowed to work remotely. The FDP wants a firm right to this. Offices should become more open and flexible. This should keep the state a good employer.

The plan includes open offices, flexible workstations and a mix of individual and shared workspaces. The FDP points out that remote work changes how much space is needed. The German states should cooperate more closely so that each state does not develop its own separate solution.